Tag Archives: crime

The Bus Route: Part 2

Welcome to the 2nd Instalment of The Bus Route. I hope all of you are staying safe during lockdown. For me and many others, it feels like an opportunity to press the restart button in a world gone mad. For me this has been a time of intense writing and reading. Anyone who follows my blog loves to read or they wouldn’t be here. So I’m choosing this time to share a brand new KDG story that has never been made public before.

Be warned, this is a different kind of KDG story, a hybrid of erotica, crime and paranormal with a pinch of horror thrown in for good measure. After today, I will be sending you an instalment of The Bus Route once a week for seven weeks, so be sure to check in every Friday for a new instalment.

 

Sex in derelict buses. Who knew it was a thing?

A money-making thing for Seth Allen, who blackmails enthusiasts stepping out on their other half by catching the deed on cameras he’s rigged at a public transport scrap yard known by frequenters as the Bus Route. Sadly the paydays aren’t as regular as Seth would like until con artist, Jon Knight, suggests they team up. With Seth’s tech and Jon’s charm, the money rolls in and the future looks bright until their marks start disappearing mysteriously.

 

 

 

 

The Bus Route: Part II

 

The woman Jon brought to the Bust Stop our first night as a team had the airbrushed good looks that rubberstamped the filthy rich. She was dressed to the nines except for the clunky oversized shoulder bag, but I cared way more about the filthy rich part than her fashion statement. I planted myself at a table near enough to hear the occasional tinkle of nervous laughter over the canned music and see the flutter of long lashes when Jon pushed her color-me perfect hair aside to give lip service to her throat and earlobe. But when his hands headed south she made a half-assed attempt to push him away. He quickly regrouped and went for mouth to mouth instead. She gave over to the full-on lip-lock deluxe package with plenty of tongue and teeth, as her tastefully manicured fists clenched the back of his shirt. Then I realized while the face eating finesse never faltered, Jon’s gaze was on me. It was show time.

He was taking her on the Bus Route, and I would be waiting. I didn’t need to be there. I could have done my part from my laptop in the back of the bar, but Jon insisted.

The Bus Stop itself was a slapped together bar on a dodgy industrial site, an eyesore in daylight and not much better tarted up by darkness and a few oversized Christmas lights strung precariously above the door. No one knew what might be buried under a few inches of scraped together rubble, but then no one was there to paint landscapes. No glammed up urban renewal here, just an old warehouse overdue for condemning. If the cops ever decided to shut the place down, they’d have a shitload of violations to choose from. But the always crowded Bus Stop went conveniently, and lucratively unnoticed.

The real attraction of the place was the enormous scrap yard behind the property with its graveyard of old public transport buses. The place was posted and tucked away behind by a high fence topped with razor wire. The bar was the only public, if illegal, entrance to the Bus Route. Fucking in derelict buses. Who knew it was a thing? For me a lucrative thing once I set up a few remote cameras in the more popular buses. It wasn’t hard to tell which ones were well used. Those busses sported rows of marks scratched into the paint near the front door, like notches on a bedpost. Some of the regulars had made it a game, a challenge, to see who could hook up and shag in the most buses. It was a double decker Jon and I chose. I slipped out ahead of him taking a short cut through a gap between the fence and the wall of a derelict body shop. Whatever went on inside, I didn’t want to know, but the place was always a bit whiffy.

Though they were redundant, at Jon’s request, I donned my spy specs as I slunk into the bus. I had just gotten tucked out of sight when he helped his lady up the steps, their breathless giggles and wet kisses sounded like something straight from an adolescent grope fest. The motion sensors triggered the cameras, and we were open for business.

“I always wanted to drive a bus,” she said, curling her fingers around the girth of the steering wheel suggestively.

“Seat’s a little low for you, darling, but I have just the solution.” Jon settled in behind the wheel and with a little bit of tugging and shifting for position, he was open for business too. There was no foreplay, no coaxing, no teasing. She just hoiked her skirt and climbed aboard, the noises of pain and pleasure too muddled to tell apart. Hands tangled in hair and yanked at clothing all to a wet soundtrack of heavy breathing and animal grunts.

Now I’ve recorded enough rough rides and clumsy efforts to give it or take it up the chuff to know that in a hook up on the Bus Route, there’s seldom more than an awkward fumble followed by a quick stuff and shoot. But there was cool elegance in what Jon did to that woman, and yet something distantly savage and desperate. I could have analyzed the videos frame by frame and still not figured out what he’d done to make her so completely his for that few minutes. It embarrassed me to realize that I was just as enthralled.

When the deed was done he motioned me over, the woman all but falling off his lap as she pulled up knickers and tugged at her skirt. “I want it,” she said with the wide-eyed excitement of a happy drunk. “Jon told me everything, Seth, and of course I want to buy it.”

Before I could question, Jon said, “I told Eleanor about mum. I’m sorry, Seth. It just came out.” He gave her a goo goo-eyed lover’s look. “She’s just so easy to talk to. And Seth, she wants to help us so we won’t have to do this anymore.” And bugger me if this Eleanor person didn’t pull boulder-sized diamond studs from her earlobes and hand them over “Take them, they’re genuine,” she slurred. With a wave of her hand she added, “they were just an impulse buy to thumb my nose at my husband. And this.” She shoved the clunky shoulder bag into my arms. “It’s all I could lay my hands on with such short notice, but hopefully it’ll help your mum.” She nodded for me to open it. The thing was completely stuffed with cash. Lots of cash! That fashion statement worked just fine for me.

“This will help mum so much,” Jon said. “Eleanor, how can we ever repay your kindness?” Were there actually tears in his eyes?

“Well, Seth can get me a flash drive of that delicious video, and you,” she said, stroking Jon’s exposed chest, can take me home.”

I’d done the big reveal often enough to be prepared when the guilty parties called me every filthy name in their often limited vocabulary, even threatened me with bodily injury before they twigged that they could either pay up or suffer the consequences. But this was a first.

The Bus Route: Part 1 of a Brand New 7 Part KGD Story

I hope all of you are staying safe during lockdown. For me and many others, it feels like an opportunity to press the restart button in a world gone mad. For me this has been a time of intense writing and reading. Anyone who follows my blog loves to read or they wouldn’t be here. So I’m choosing this time to share a brand new KDG story that has never been made public before.

Be warned, this is a different kind of KDG story, a hybrid of erotica, crime and paranormal with a pinch of horror thrown in for good measure. After today, I will be sending you an instalment of The Bus Route once a week for the next seven weeks, so be sure to check in every Friday for a new instalment.

 

Sex in derelict buses. Who knew it was a thing?

A money-making thing for Seth Allen, who blackmails enthusiasts stepping out on their other half by catching the deed on cameras he’s rigged at a public transport scrap yard known by frequenters as the Bus Route. Sadly the paydays aren’t as regular as Seth would like until con artist, Jon Knight, suggests they team up. With Seth’s tech and Jon’s charm, the money rolls in and the future looks bright until their marks start disappearing mysteriously.

 

 

 

The Bus Route Part I

 

“I’ve been watching you, Seth.” The stranger inserted himself into the tight space next to me at the bar. “I know what you’re doing here.” That the man knew my name should have scared me more than it did, but you get jaded in my line of work. As to him knowing what I did, well, I doubted it. In hindsight, I was less cautious than I should have been.

“I’m here to get lucky, like everyone else,” I said without looking away from the couple I’d been watching. They were taking longer than the average punters to get on with it – evidence that romance wasn’t dead, only anesthetized and dysfunctional. They were finally about to give me the money shot, and I’d just activated the camera on my spy specs. I couldn’t afford to have another unsuccessful night. “Sorry, mate,” I added, hoping he’d take the hint, “you’re not my type.”

I scented quality whisky on his breath, and he wore cologne too expensive for me to be allowed in the same room with. “Oh, I’m everybody’s type,” he all but purred. “Though that’s not the point.”

I’ll admit, it intrigued me, even excited me a little that he had been observing me, but then I was in a sleazy bar full of people who got off on the risk of being seen doing the dirty with a stranger. Though having their illicit acts recorded for purchase or as surprise prezzies for the viewing pleasure of their absent other halves should they decline was not what they had in mind.

“You won’t get much from them,” the man observed over my shoulder.  “Bloke’s drowning in debt. Probably be a divorce when his wife finds out. You’re looking at what, a hundred quid, maybe two if you’re lucky.”

Two fifty and change, I thought to myself. Delia, the bar maid, had light fingers and had borrowed the man’s ostentatious money clip from his pocket when she delivered the last drink. She took a few bills for herself and passed the word on to me. Money clips were rare in this hole, but a little flash of the cash would always get you laid if you had little else going for you.

The man behind me all but sighed in my ear. “I suppose that’s not bad for one night’s work. If it’s the best you can do.”

That tore it! I was tired, I was hungry, and I owed three or my snitches money for their tips on the fiascos of the last two nights. I turned on him. “I suppose you can do better.”

“You know I can. Way better.” Before I could do more than stand there with my gob hanging open, he grabbed my hand and shook it. “I’m Jon.”

“I know,” was all I could manage. Now I’m not gay, but I’m definitely open-minded, and I’d seen enough of Jon’s moves at the Bus Stop to give myself the occasional drunken stiffie imagining what it would be like with him. He was a player, though I couldn’t figure out his game. He was always with a different person, occasionally someone he’d picked up at the Bus Stop, more often someone he just showed up with. They were never anyone I recognized, and he never used any of my buses for the deed. The cameras would have recorded it if he had. None of his marks ever came back to the Bus Stop. I figured once he got them to cough up the dosh, they were smart enough to stay away. Though watching his moves, I reckon some of them thought it was good value for money.

“If you’re hitting on me, you’re wasting your time. I’m skint.”

He waved my words away like he would a gnat from his beer. “Now, why would I hit on my prospective business partner?”

That reminded me why I was at the Bus Stop, but I turned to find the couple I’d been watching gone.

Ignoring my colorful language, Jon laid a firm hand on my shoulder and guided me away from the bar. “Never mind them, they’re beneath you. Together we can do so much better.”  He sat me down at a rickety table already equipped with two glasses a bottle of very fine whisky.

His plan was simple. He’d do what he did best and seduce the money. With my network of cameras, I would make sure the act was recorded for posterity. He said he’d already been grooming our first mark. He said he had it all planned out, a payday way bigger than anything I’d ever managed. Honestly, I don’t remember much beyond the basic plan. Apparently I had more than my share of the whisky, as we toasted our partnership.

If my ability was to remain unnoticed, Jon’s was to be irresistible in a very lucrative way. At first glance, he could have been a cliché for a romance novel – tall, dark, broad-shouldered, but his looks were irrelevant. It was his actions that were unforgettable. I make my living being observant, and good looks don’t count for much. It’s polish, confidence, attitude, like you own the whole goddamned planet. Jon had that in spades. But I brought into the partnership the cameras and tech along with a set up that had taken patience, stealth and the better part of a year to put together. That Jon knew about that set up should have concerned me. It didn’t.

Out Now – In Bed with the Enemy, Undercover Lovers: Book Two by Ellie Barker (@sinfulpress @EllieBa3)

Released on June 15th 2018 from Sinful Press, In Bed with the Enemy is the new LGBT erotic crime novella by Ellie Barker, and is the second novella in the Undercover Lovers trilogy.

In Bed with the Enemy continues the story of Nikolas, a bisexual police mole, and Sky, a transgender thief, as they work to infiltrate the local crime syndicate. Ellie Barker has created a fast paced and highly entertaining trilogy, with a diverse range of characters, various sexual encounters, and unconventional romance. Secrets and Spies, the first in the trilogy, was released in May 2018, and For Queen and Country, the remaining book in the trilogy, is due for release on July 13th 2018.

In Bed with the Enemy is Amazon exclusive for a limited time before being released across all main platforms. It is available to read through Kindle Unlimited.

Blurb:

Nikolas Jinsen, police mole and mafia odd-job man, is given an ultimatum; stop seeing his girlfriend, or lose his job. When a hasty attempt to keep both goes wrong, he does the only thing he can think of: he lies. But with his new roommate a member of the elite gang that Nikolas has been tasked to look into, and his assignations with his girlfriend constantly interrupted by calls on his services as a lover, Nikolas finds that work isn’t all fun and games.

Excerpt:

I pulled out my phone.

Bear answered within two rings. “Nikolas! This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I changed my mind about that nightcap, if the offer’s still open,” I told him.

Why the change of heart?” He sounded a bit surprised.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” And actually, it was true. I wanted to know what he was like in bed. How far down that beard went. What was under that suit. What he looked like when he came.

I thought you didn’t do one-offs?”

“Sky wants to hear all about it afterwards.”

I heard the bellow of laughter down the phone, and then he came back on the line, still chuckling. “Well, I can’t disappoint her, can I. When?”

“What’s wrong with now?”

Forty-five minutes later, I was getting out of a taxi at the foot of a tower block. Ten minutes had been picking up a bottle of wine that I liked, wondering if he’d like it, checking with Sky—who told me she didn’t have a fucking clue and I’d just got her killed, which meant she was playing something with Benny—and going back to my original choice. And now I was here, looking up at the lit windows above me and thinking about Tanya’s exhibitionism.

I’d wondered about getting a hotel room, but Bear had invited me over and I’d accepted. It meant if there was a trap I was walking into it, but then a hotel room had a veneer of anonymity that I didn’t necessarily like. Sky knew where I was going, and had offered to come and rescue me if needed—and that meant she could potentially bring both the Queen and Tanya’s resources down on someone’s head. Tanya Mardos didn’t care about much in the world, but I figured she’d probably have something to say if her current sex toy wasn’t available on demand.

And so I headed for the main door and pushed the button for the flat intercom.

Yes?” Bear’s voice said almost immediately.

“Nikolas.”

Come on up.”

Book links:

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/IBWTEkindle

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38908122-in-bed-with-the-enemy

 

Author Bio:

Ellie mostly writes short’n’dirty flash fiction and short erotic fiction in any genre going. She prefers vampires over werewolves, and is always hot for a rainy night.

You can find out more about Ellie over at http://elliebarker.co.uk/, or follow her on Twitter as @EllieBa3

Release blitz organized by Writer Marketing Services.

Heroes Old and New: Looking For Charlotte by Jennifer Young (@jynovelist)

tourbutton_lookingforcharlotteLooking For Charlotte is, at heart, a romantic novel in that it’s a novel about love. But that comes with qualifications, because it isn’t just about romantic love, or about sexual love. It’s about all sorts of love — sex and romance come into it, but so does the love of a mother for her children, of one human being for another when they’re strangers to one another.

But although it may trip out of one genre and into another when the time is right, Looking For Charlotte has the things that all romantic novels have — a hero and a heroine. In fact, reader, aren’t you lucky, because you have not one but two of each, a lead and a support.

It’s the heroes I’m talking about today. Let me introduce our main man first up. He isn’t your typical hero. His name is Philip. He’s in his fifties, a solicitor with the driest sense of humour, handsome (in a mid-fifties kind of way). He loves our heroine, Flora — but there’s a problem and that’s his wife. And the problem is that although he loves Flora he loves his wife, too, and his wife has been dead for twenty years.

Enter our supporting hero, the appropriately-named Archie Fortune. Archie is also a solicitor, though a couple of decades younger than Philip and without the emotional baggage. He’s much more of a conventional hero but he has problems of his own, because he falls in love with our supporting heroine, Suzanne and she is the one with the baggage. More specifically, Suzanne’s recent past involves a dead husband and the daughter he murdered before his suicide — so how can she ever love again?

So there are two love stories going on here; Flora and Philip, Suzanne and Archie. There’s an old love story (if I may call it that) and a young love story. Because young people aren’t the only ones to fall in love and (as someone once said) not all heroes wear capes.

I wonder sometimes if there’s a risk involved in writing love stories that are a little out of the ordinary; but I don’t regret it in the least. Most of my romantic plots are about first love, or at least first real love; but in Looking For Charlotte all but one of the main protagonists have long and/or never-to-be-forgotten stories behind them.

Can Philip put his saintly, beloved, dead wife, Joanne, behind him or will she come between him and Flora, whose obsessive search for little lost Charlotte frustrates and unnerves him? And is Archie, unencumbered by the traumas of any serious relationship that’s failed, sufficiently sensitive to overcome Suzanne’s suspicions and teach her to trust again?

Two heroes, then, one traditional (“Well, there was no question that she’d picked the handsome one”), one less so (“He hadn’t always been old-fashioned. Time moved on and some people stayed behind. Sometimes it suited them”). They both face a challenge. Will they both succeed?

 

Excerpt

‘I was married in June.  It’s supposed to be lucky, June. We had the full works. Marquee, ceilidh band, the lot.’ Over the years she’d tried to forget about it, but suddenly it surged up in her mind — dappled sunshine, rose-petal confetti, flower girls, laughter. Lucky horseshoes.

‘Jo and I married in a church on Loch Lomondside. Reception in a local hotel. We even had the view down to the water, just like this. It had snowed the day before. And there was a moon. Gorgeous. ’

She could see that he was just as reluctant to recall the details. Their weddings had been a long time ago. ‘How we must both have changed.’

‘Change happens to everyone in the end. It’s just that it comes to some of us sooner than others.’

‘Yes. Think of poor Suzanne Beauchamp.’

The silence persisted. They moved along the terrace a little way, isolating themselves from the clustered smokers, breath and cigarette-smoke mingling to make a fog of the night air.

‘Actually,’ said Philip, after a moment, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

‘About what?’

‘Suzanne Beauchamp. Though I know this isn’t the time or the place. But you mentioned it.’

‘Go on.’ Of course it was the right time, the right place. It was because of the drink and because of the memories and because it showed he cared.

‘You aren’t going to find that girl.’

‘I might. Charlotte.’ She has a name. She narrowed her lips, her eyes, not in a scowl but in determination.

‘Flora, she’s dead. She could be buried anywhere. You’re chasing some ridiculous shadow for reasons of your own. You’re letting it take over your life.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. I never see you. You’re always out. You’re always tired. It’s making you unhappy.’

‘It isn’t.’ No, it isnt that.

‘And at the end of the day you won’t find her.’

‘She has to be somewhere.’

‘She does, but you don’t know where. And you won’t find out. How can you? We don’t even know if the clues on his letter were right. He could just have dumped her in a loch somewhere and made up the rest.’

‘He might. Or he might not.’ Flora stared out at the nearest thing to stare at, a few straggly shrub branches, iced and still. If you want to see me you could come with me when I look. He would laugh if she said that, or worse, shrug his shoulders and look away.

‘I think you should drop it before you make a fool of yourself.’ Then, after the silence he said, ‘Sorry. Wrong time, wrong place.’

 

Looking For Charlotte by Jennifer YoungBlurb

Divorced and lonely, Flora Wilson is distraught when she hears news of the death of little Charlotte Anderson. Charlotte’s father killed her and then himself, and although he left a letter with clues to her grave, his two-year-old daughter still hasn’t been found. Convinced that she failed her own children, now grown up and seldom at home, Flora embarks on a quest to find Charlotte’s body to give the child’s mother closure, believing that by doing so she can somehow atone for her own failings.

As she hunts in winter through the remote moors of the Scottish Highlands, her obsession comes to challenge the very fabric of her life — her job, her friendship with her colleague Philip Metcalfe, and her relationships with her three children.

Tirgearr Publishing: http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Young_Jennifer/looking-for-charlotte.htm

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1D7pNY6

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1JmAwBR

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/526032?ref=cw1985

 

Author bio

I live in Edinburgh and I write romance and contemporary women’s fiction. I’ve been writing all my life and my first book was published in February 2014, though I’ve had short stories published before then. The thing that runs through all my writing is an interest in the world around me. I love travel and geography and the locations of my stories is always important to me. And of course I love reading — anything and everything.

Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenniferyoungauthor

Twitter: @JYnovelist

Website: http://www.jenniferyoungauthor.com/

 

GIVEAWAY!

Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://www.writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/jennifer-young-2/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Pygmalion Hypnotist by Hypnotic Dreams

The Pygmalion HypnotistBlurb/Synopsis

Hypnotist, Darren Braid, is getting ready to launch a new line of erotic hypnosis CDs. A potential publicist suggests that he collaborate with her other clients, wannabe film producer Scott Sunderland and his discovery Liza Hill. Her plan calls for Darren to hypnotize Liza and transform her into a dominatrix. Sunderland will film the transformation and produce a series of BDSM videos.

But shortly after Darren begins hypnotizing the starlet, repressed memories of her childhood abduction begin to surface. Investigating further, he and FBI Agent, Kristen Parker, discover that Liza had been stolen as a child and sold to a ring of pedophiles. While they help Liza deal with her trauma and build her self-esteem, they discover she can identify one of the FBI’s most wanted, a sadist who mentors pedophiles in hidden regions of the internet. The FBI has never identified this man offline, but finding him is their only hope of tracing Liza’s origin. To find her birth mother, Darren and Kristen must help Liza control her fear and face the man who tortured her as a child.

 

Excerpt

“Braid!” Kristen Parker pounded on his apartment door. She couldn’t hear anything inside, but it was almost 10 pm. He had to be in there. “Braid, I’m not going away. Open this door.”

After pounding for several minutes, Kristen finally heard the bolt being drawn. She didn’t wait for him to open the door. As soon as it was unlocked, she pushed her way inside.

She caught a glimpse Latoya Douglas standing by the sofa before reeling on the hypnotist. “You should have told me.”

“Told you what?”

“Liza. You should have told me she’s being abused.”

“I didn’t see anyone abuse her, did you?”

“No, of course not. But he is, and you know it. Or you wouldn’t have told me to watch her. Sunderland has got her so messed up, she afraid to even form an opinion, let alone express one.”

“Maybe, but her problems could just as well be the result of past abuse. Unless we see it, or she complains, there’s no way to know for sure.

Kristen gaped at him until she remembered that he had been a psychology professor as well as a hypnotist. He might actually know what he was talking about.

Kristen fumed as she turned away. But Latoya’s presence brought her up short. The slender black woman wasn’t moving. She stood completely still. She wore high heals and a black lace corset, which left her shoulders complete bare. The lace was cut high over her thighs, and dipped low in front of her breasts. Hypnotized and frozen, Latoya was a statue of elegant sensuality.

Kristen had experimented a bit with other women, but always preferred men. She had the sudden feeling that Latoya Douglas could change that. She swallowed hard as she tore her eyes away.

“We have to do something.”

“Tell me what happened. First, do you want something to drink?”

Kristen nodded. “Beer, if you have it.” She sat down on the sofa and tried to avoid looking at the sexy statue two feet away.

Darren went to the kitchen and came out with an open bottle of beer. Kristen took a large swig then related her experience with the starlet.

“I was afraid of that. Her self-esteem is so badly damaged that she’s afraid to make even small decisions. It makes her totally dependent on Sunderland.”

“We have to get her out of there.”

“If you take her away from him now, she’ll become dependent on you. She has to decide to leave. And before she can do that, she has to learn to make decisions and trust them.

“What can we do?”

“Exactly what we are doing. I’m hypnotizing her, and you’re being her friend. Together, we encourage her to start eating properly and taking care of her health. Then we encourage her to start observing and thinking analytically. It’s important to get her to start exercising her own judgement; and then to start trusting her judgement. Start with other actors, then her own acting, then other aspects of her life.

“Eventually, hopefully, she’ll be able to see that she can make her life better by relying on her own judgement.”

Kristen eyed Latoya’s frozen body. “Like your uh, boy-toy here.”

“Believe it or not, Latoya is one of the most confident and capable women I’ve ever met. Her self confidence lets her enjoy being controlled in the bedroom, and taking control in the boardroom.”

Darren got a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Her self confidence even enables us to enjoy an occasional threesome.” He was obviously teasing. But seeing this stunning black woman like this, completely vulnerable, completely available, Kristen felt tempted; too tempted.

Buy Links

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Smashwords

 

My Bio

Before writing my first novel, I worked as a technical writer for 17 years. I hold a BS in Engineering and an MS in Technical Communication.

Since 2000, I’ve been pioneering the art of hyperempiria (creating sensory experience through hypnotic suggestion.)  This is accomplished by integrating hypnotic language patterns, positive affirmations and NLP into the narrative of an audio story. One of my hypnosis programs, The Ultimate Kiss, was nominated for an “O” Award for Outstanding Innovation.

The Pygmalion Hypnotist is my second novel.